Top 5 CHL Goals of the Year

Alex DeBrincat (Aaron Bell/OHL Images)

That’s it for another CHL regular season, folks. The last handful of
games are over with, and to commemorate the season, I’m counting down
the top five CHL goals of 2016-17.

Top five lists are subjective by nature and foolhardy at best. Still,
I love them—and so do many readers. It was especially difficult in this
case: What defines a great goal anyway? Speed? Stickhandling? Impact?
Making the other fellow(s) look silly? There were plenty of goals this
season that engaged all of these criteria, which made my job even more
difficult.

Here they are, in descending order (although you could shake up the order and it wouldn’t matter much. They’re all bonkers).

5. Alex DeBrincat vs Oshawa Generals, Feb. 20Scoring your 50th goal of the season must be a sweet feeling. Doing
so against cross-conference rivals must be sweeter. But when DeBrincat
scored this goal against the Oshawa Generals on February 20th, he became
only the second player in OHL history to find out what it feels like to
score 50 goals in three consecutive seasons. It might not be the best
individual effort of the year, but it had tremendous impact – and it was
nice to see him get it off a feed from a longtime sidekick in Dylan
Strome.

4. Kailer Yamamoto vs Tri-City Americans, Dec. 30 If anybody wasn’t aware of Spokane Chief Kailer Yamamoto’s immense
potential and game-breaking speed before December 30th, just watch his
shorthanded goal against the Tri-City Americans. Yamamoto stole a rare
errant pass away from Tyler Sandhu, then found himself in a footrace
with the overage Americans captain. Watch the video to find out who won
(by a lot).

3. Tyler Steenbergen vs Spokane Chiefs, Oct. 29It’s safe to say that Swift Current’s Tyler Steenbergen has always
been a pretty good at hockey. Still, not many could have predicted he
would improve by 31 goals this season (20 to 51). Of the 51 goals he
notched, none were better than the overtime goal he scored against the
Chiefs early in the season on October 29th. Perhaps confidence played a
large part in his production increase, as evidenced by this solo effort.

2. Vitali Abramov vs Val-d’Or Foreurs, Nov. 12Another goal that happened early in the season, Abramov’s goal
against the Foreurs on November 12th is a thing of beauty. Abramov burns
both Foreurs with a tremendous display of speed. As he cruised through
the neutral zone, he looked up as if he were about to dump the puck, but
instead put his head back down and dug in, getting past both Foreurs
defenders while the forward unit looks on helplessly. The Columbus Blue
Jackets have a player here (Abramov was taken in the third round by the
Jackets last summer).

1. Thomas Chabot vs Halifax Mooseheads, Mar. 12Okay, full disclosure—I’m an Ottawa-based writer, and I root for the
home team. I’m a blogger, not a TV analyst, so I have the luxury of
being able to say it, consequence-free. I assure you though, my decision
to pick Chabot for top honour is no act of bias. Watch as he cruises
through four Mooseheads en route to the net, where he deftly flicks the
puck into the net on the blocker side. Chabot is the best defensive
prospect not in the NHL right now, and he has been showing it late in
the season.

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